Cambridgeshire bucked the national trend in 2017 when it comes to new businesses, enjoying a record year of company creation.

Last year 6,384 businesses were registered in the county, compared to 6,208 in 2016. This brings the total number of registered companies in Cambridgeshire to 46,059, up from 43,412 at the end of 2016, which equates to 6.1 per cent growth.

Peterborough formed the most new businesses at 1,779, followed by South Cambridgeshire (1,530) and Huntingdonshire (1,157).

The statistics come from the Inform Direct Review of UK Company Formations, using data from Companies House and the Office for National Statistics.

John Korchak, director of operations at Inform Direct said: “These record figures for new company formations during 2017 show that Cambridgeshire continues to be a particularly fertile ground for entrepreneurs and new business ventures.

“The results buck the national trend which saw an overall reduction in the number of new company formations compared to 2016. This slowdown could be attributed, at least in part, to ongoing political uncertainty and concern in the business community over the impact of Brexit.”

Across the UK as a whole, there was a reduction in the number of new company formations – 634,116 compared with 664,720 in 2016.